


carved

by grassangel



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Prophecy, Rites of Passage, Rituals, Scarification, probably culturally appropriative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 19:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassangel/pseuds/grassangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jotunn markings are part prophecy and part document, lines traced with a blade over and over since birth. All children have tears cried over them at the first cutting, but Prince Loki's are particularly sorrowful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	carved

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Jotun Loki manip](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/16675) by theavengersmascot-mmm. 



> Warning: this scarification ritual is being done to an infant and there is a mention of infant exposure as ritual.

The babe shrieks as the first set of lines the child would receive in its lifetime are cut into its skin; lines that would scab and scar in only a few days, recognition that the child had survived the first day of its life. Those cuts would be carved again after the ritual exposure, subtle whisperings of family and prophecy, reopened and carved deeper over and over during its lifetime until in old age they were sunken deep into their flesh.

Once made, they could never be altered, as immutable as the path to Urd’s Well. They were future and history together as one, their meaning only legible to those who wrote them into cerulean skin.

A cresting circlet for ‘son of kings’, a bisected line for ‘betrayal’, broken patterns on both cheeks for ‘lost’ and ‘mourned’ – a pleasing symmetry. Three encircling bracelets foretell and retell great power. 

All children of Jotunheim have tears cried over their wriggling bodies at this first ceremony, but the fortune of this young one floods the channels on the elder’s skin, creating rivers on the icy realm for the first time in hundreds of years.

Sorrow itself is carved on the Prince’s skin and Boðólfr weeps as his knife cuts through the young flesh, the heir’s terrible fortune forever engraved upon him.

**Author's Note:**

> Boðólfr translates roughly to ‘battle wolf’, although the second part was meant as a nod to Áleifr which has connotations of ‘inheritance/legacy’.
> 
> Other meta notes can be found at my tumblr at [this post](http://grassangel.tumblr.com/post/36576548035/meta-post).


End file.
